Saturday, January 19, 2013

Cats, Dogs, Crime, and a Compost Heap

As street crime continues to grow city residents can lay their heads upon their pillows at night, resting assured that city officials are promptly and thoroughly addressing the most pressing issues.

Unfortunately, these pressing issues have nothing to do with larcenies from vehicles, criminal mischief, burglaries, shootings, robberies, drugs, violence, or arson's in Lansingburgh. You see city officials are actively engaged in solving the deficiency of a dog park, spay and neutering feral cats, and planning for urban composting. It's worth noting that if the city hasn't been experiencing increased levels of crime, each of the previously mentioned initiatives have merit, as I personally have supported two of them in the past, but right now the abundance of crime is at the forefront of everyone's mind and the lack of attention has residents concerned.

At our North Lansingburgh Neighborhood Watch meetings have averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 residents each meeting since October. The common topic - crime and the lack of attention in addressing it. While the monthly crime statistics demonstrate a need for increased public safety, Lansingburgh hasn't received the support from city officials or the headlines in newspapers or on the news as dog parks, feral cats, and composting have. City officials aren't recognizing our need. Why's that? Maybe it's because they have been eagerly awaiting the new Public Safety Commissioner to ride in on a white horse and solve all their problems for them. Lets be blunt here, the recently appointed commissioner had a very honorable career with the Troy PD prior to his retirement and he is a very capable officer of the law, but what he isn't is a wizard. He has no magic wand that can be waved to make these issues magically disappear.

At this time a good starting point would be an acknowledgment from the City that there is a serious crime problem and a commitment to OUR Lansingburgh neighborhoods that a timely solution will be established. And until this happens, I personally don't want to hear about feral cats unless they're the ones breaking into our cars, or dog parks unless that's where the drug dealers are hanging out, or newly created jobs to coordinate composting the only "new" jobs we want to hear about are more cops per shift on our streets.

I fear we will continue to lose Lansingburgh block-by-block and the city will fall to the cats and dogs.